KLXVER said:
Absolutely first thing. Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FszQelEQ2KY 99.999% of the time there is a killing involving a police officer, its someone resisting arrest. Why would you ever do that? There is zero in it for you. I dont understand that kind of thinking. No matter how bad the police officer is, they dont just kill you when you act respectful towards them. |
Guy, you gotta stop taking this fake University seriously... They are a propaganda machine.
My issues with this video:
1) They utilized definitions of parenthood centered around marriage instead of the presence of a parent. They acknowledge that the absence of marriage does not always mean the absence of a father, yet they primarily use statistics centered around marriage when these statistics do not tell the full story.
2) They center the worth of marriage around economic benefits as opposed to the strength of a relationship. It is somewhat gross to be saying that a "woman is married to the government" when she utilizes welfare, as that pretty clearly states that marriage isn't about relationships, but about financial transactions. This hearkens back to the days where a woman was seen as property owned by the husband, which shouldn't really come as much of a surprise because this is common in the bible and the raison d'etre of Prager U is centered around biblical values.
3) Implications are not statistics. It is interesting how many statistics they throw out regarding the increase of single motherhood, yet when it comes to the effect of welfare on single motherhood, they are conspicuously silent. They decide that this is the time to listen to Tupac quotes instead of checking out the science. This should be a huge red flag. When statistics suddenly go missing, that should lead you to go check it out for yourself.
So what does the evidence say? There is a lot here so bear with me.
a) The increase of the welfare state:
-Another area where evidence was conspicuously missing was the increase in welfare over time. It is heavily implied that welfare was increasing or at least consistently applied from the beginning of "the war on poverty" to now. This is simply not the case. One of the most important developments in welfare was welfare reform in the mid 90s. During this period, we saw a steep decline in welfare receipt:
This chart shows that in the '90s, welfare receipt (focused on welfare received by families) steeply decreased, however if you compare that to the rate of single motherhood, you will see that the graphs don't show a strong relation:
b) So lets talk about that. Does the science say that there is a strong relationship here?
http://www.econ2.jhu.edu/people/Moffitt/welfarerules.pdf Welfare Rules, Incentives, and Family Structure We provide a new examination of the incentive effects of welfare rules on family structure among low-income women by emphasizing that the eligibility and benefit rules in the AFDC and TANF programs are based more on the biological relationship between the children and any male in the household than on marriage or cohabitation per se. Using data from 1996 through 2008, we analyze the effects of 1990s welfare reforms on family structure categories that incorporate the biological status of the male. Like past work, we find that most policies did not affect family structure. However, we do find that several work-related reforms increased single parenthood and decreased marriage to biological fathers. These results are especially evident when multiple work-related policies were implemented together and when we examine the longer term impacts of the policies. We posit that these effects of work-related welfare policies on family structure stem from their effects on increased labor force participation and earnings of single mothers combined with factors special to biological fathers, including a decline in their employment and wages. |
Evidence actually indicates that the type of welfare reform succeeds in getting individuals to work, but as a result, this actually increases single parenthood. Further, reforms based around encouraging two-parent families did not make a significant difference. As such, it follows that more welfare, not less, would do more to decrease the single parenthood rate. The video argues that "marriage to the government" is harmful to the institution of marriage, however the evidence simply does not back up these claims.
4) My last two issues with this video are based not on what they said, but on what they didn't say. This video failed to speak about other factors which can reduce the single motherhood rate. These things shouldn't surprise you given that this channel is conservative, biblical propaganda. They did not mention any potential impact of abortion, or birth control or sex education on single motherhood.
5) And while they speak a lot about the harms of single motherhood, they fail to grapple with the consequences that are interwoven into this equation. While you may be more likely to go to jail if you are raised by a single mother, you are also more likely to be put into numerous other boxes which also increase your risk of going to jail, such as lack of access to childcare, poverty, poor education and lack of access to upward mobility, however, in order to grapple with these things, you have to acknowledge the harm of their solution. Their solution of reducing welfare increases poverty, decreases access to childcare, decreases education quality and decreases access to upward mobility. You cannot speak about the harms of single motherhood without acknowledging that the reason for these harms goes far beyond the lack of a father figure, and as soon as you acknowledge that, you see just how off the mark their solution actually is.
PS: I would just like to say, this is why I typically don't engage with someone who substitutes a Youtube video for an argument. You spend 30 seconds to find a shitty Prager U video and I spent an hour explaining why that video blows. I will not be responding to any other video arguments in the future. If you have an argument, make it yourself.